These complexes, complete with hotels and up-scale shopping, are "uneconomical" now, Cahill said, arguing they are too expensive to build and would not attract enough visitors as unemployment climbs and the state faces its worst financial crisis in decades.

Exxon told the owner last year that it was "uneconomical" to keep supplying the station with gasoline and the oil giant wanted to remove its tanks, says Jeff Pinkava, the owner and a great-grandson of the station's founder.